


Senses in the Shadows

by eleni459 (quietcuriosity)



Category: Bleach
Genre: Community: 31_days, F/M, Introspection, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-25
Updated: 2009-08-25
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:43:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietcuriosity/pseuds/eleni459
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was odd the things she noticed when she was almost alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Senses in the Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for the 31_days community. The theme was "memories are films about ghosts".

Aizen barely moved as he slept. Such a fact should have been an easy thing to pick up on for the young woman who spent three nights a week by his side. But she only found out by accident.

Hinamori had never been a contented sleeper. Even in her own bed, her body sought a level of comfort that appeared to be impossible to obtain. His bed only exacerbated this trend. So her body twisted and turned throughout the night, flailing out to smack, kick, and punch everything in her path.

Though she usually slept through such acts of violence, she recognized that her body had betrayed her the moment her palm connected with his face. She pulled the hand back and folded herself into a ball, silently praying that he would not awaken enraged. When she received no reaction, she slowly unfolded her body and sat up.

Quietly, she watched the gentle rise and fall of his breaths. To her eyes, there was something almost mundane, yet especially alluring about his sleeping form. He appeared to be a bit more flawed and authentic, more real man than idol. She eyed the faint scar that transversed his forearm in awe. Perhaps, she thought, she could convince him to tell her the story of how he received it in the morning. She reached out and traced the indentions his glasses had left by the sides of his ears. She hadn't even realized that they were there before. When he still refused to move, she traced a heart into the paleness of his cheek. For a moment, it flamed bright red inside the dull night's light. There was no trace of it a minute later.

She hardly slept that night because she spent that time watching him sleep. Though she felt as if the rhythmic rise and fall of his body should have lulled her toward sleep, it only seemed to keep her awake. These moments, she somehow knew, would be rare and she knew she had to relish them for as long as she could. When she saw him begin to stir as the sun peeked over the horizon, she turned over to the other side and pretended to sleep. By the time she felt his hand on her shoulder, she had almost fallen back towards her fitful slumber. "Hinamori-kun," he whispered, "did you sleep well?" She smiled and nodded.

* * *

  
Though the memory was not unpleasant, she somehow let it slide from her mind. It wasn't until long after the Fall from Grace that she could remember. Though she knew it was silly, a part of her couldn't help but wonder if he still slept so soundly in Hueco Mundo. She couldn't imagine that it was a very peaceful place. And yet she knew that he had slept so well as he plotted the downfall of all of his colleagues. She came to realize that he slept as he did was because of inner peace, however rotten it might be.

As the years passed, she began to wonder what warning signs she had missed. At the very least, her time beside him at night should have shown that the body that they believed to have been his was a fake. Had she been able to scan it closely and hold the face in her hands, a part of her believed that she could have seen the flaws. After all, he couldn't have thought of everything, could he? Perhaps it could have all been different if she had been able to see.

If only she had gotten a little closer.


End file.
